Buy Nothing Day, Earth Hour, Moments of Silence... It's all the same gimick

Buy Nothing Day : On November 25th people around the world will work to create awareness about over-consumption.

Buy Nothing Day sounds about as straightforward as it can get. You don’t buy anything to create a sense of awareness about over-consumption of products. By getting through one day of not buying anything you might even realize that you were buying things that you didn’t actually need. You might even save a couple of bucks here and there with your future purchases. But, you might also realize that an idea of buying nothing for an entire day is impossible when you consider where your money is going on a day to day basis. Unless you live in a very isolated environment, there are some services that you are bound to pay for. Utilities such as the phone, electricity and heating are being used everyday in the household. Although you are billed on a per monthly schedule, you are still buying the services.

Let’s look at this from another angle.

If you have a bank account, or credit cards that can accumulate interest, then the bank/creditor is doing business with you, thus something is being purchased. Buy Nothing Day is nothing more than a day to raise awareness about people who over spend. At the same time, by not buying anything, people begin to value the things that they have already or give them new value.

We’ve absorbed the consumerism thoughts and ideals so fast that we live off of it. Take a minute to just think about the last transaction that you made that involved money, and when your next one will be. Most might able to answer the former question, but not the latter. It’s too far ahead to make an guess for it! We don’t really know what we’re swimming around in until it’s been taken away from us, or we’ve escaped the prison entirely. Now that I think about it more, Marshal McLuhan had something to say about this matter. When a new concept is introduced to our lives, we can either choose to accept it or turn it away. If we accept it, eventually, we begin to use the new things in our lives so much, that they have been transformed to adapt to the new concepts, so much that now we can no longer imagine what life would be like without it, until it’s stripped away from us.

Unfortunately though, the dream of having the entire world buy nothing is impossible. Buying things is part of who we are as a society, we make purchases as often as we breathe air. If you can tell other people to stop breathing for an entire day, then maybe this holiday’s practicality can come to fruition. For now, the concept of having everyone participate is about as efficient as Earth Hour. While it’d be great if the whole world could turn flick off the power and participate in the event, most are not able to for their own reasons.